In early 2016, Los Angeles-based producer Jennifer Lee, best known as TOKiMONSTA, sat in a hospital bed, unable to communicate, after having blood flow in her brain essentially rewired to deal with constricted carotid arteries.

“You wake up and you don’t know what happened,” she says of the post-operation haze. “The interesting thing is that I wasn’t able to communicate, but was able to have thoughts and feelings. For some reason, I didn’t know how to turn those thoughts into language. It is very alien. I can’t describe it.”

Many artists describe their latest project as the “most personal” they’ve created yet, and Lee admits it can sound very cliche, but months after a rare condition drove her into major brain surgery, she went back to work to create “Lune Rouge.” It drops Oct. 6, two weeks and change after her performance at San Francisco’s Mezzanine, set for Wednesday, Sept. 20.

“This album came to be as a result of that whole experience,” she says. “I could have done without it, but I’m really proud of this piece of work I was able to create, this really personal” album.

Moyamoya is a vascular disease affecting certain arteries and, therefore, the flow of blood to the brain. This can cause strokes, brain hemorrhages and aneurisms, according to the Mayo Clinic. Though there’s no known cure, patients can have surgery to reroute blood flow via bypasses. Coming out of the operation, Lee was faced with physical and cognitive therapy, along with a side effect of aphasia (the inability to communicate with others using language).

“That was quite devastating for me afterwards,” she says. “Aside from not being able to talk to anyone, I couldn’t listen to music the same way. Everything sounded strange and alien.”

The first song she completed after going through this ordeal was “I Wish I Could,” a collaboration with Belgian singer-songwriter Selah Sue. Lee reached out to Sue early on, letting her know about her medical trauma. The singer responded with uplifting lyrics like “I would feel the sorrow/But the night is full of day/I’ma hold on to life.”

“That song was the most meaningful,” Lee says. “That song told me everything was going to be OK. The fact that I could make it was a sign that I was capable of making music to the same degree as before the surgery.”

Every song after “I Wish I Could” has been “more of a celebration,” she adds. “Maybe not outwardly, but as a musician I created them as a celebration of being alive, as a reassessment of who I am as a person and as a musician.”

The famously genre-adverse producer is at her best on “Lune Rouge.” There are instrumental beat tracks like “Rose’s Thorn,” throwbacks to her early work in the same L.A. music scene that gave the world artists like Flying Lotus and Gaslamp Killer. There’s “No Way,” with guest verses from Joey Purp and Isaiah Rashad and a hook from Ambré Perkins that feels custom made for rap radio. And there’s “We Love,” a collaboration with MNDR that replicates the sugar rush only possible from a great pop song.

Her live shows, which she’s preparing for the tour to support “Lune Rouge,” also have been reinvigorated. Electronic music thrives on the new, which means that sets tend to lean on the most recent tracks of an artist. But after being faced with the possibility of never making music again, Lee has had time to revisit her earlier works, the albums that made her a favorite of the Los Angeles beat scene.

“It’s like falling in love with something again,” she says. “I fell in love with my last albums again and appreciated the headspace I was in. A lot of that will be present in the new performances. … Allowing people to appreciate those moments with me during my shows, that’s very important.”